Metal-bearing wastewaters produced in industry have traditionally been treated by the addition of lime (calcium hydroxide) or caustic (sodium hydroxide) to precipitate metal hydroxide solids out of solution. The resulting solids are then separated from the clear water by settling or flotation. Typically, polymer treatments are added to the waste treatment system to aid in flocculating and agglomerating the solids for easier removal and less carryover in the effluent. The agglomerated solids are then collected as sludge, which is often disposed of by landfilling. Large amounts of these sludges are produced daily as a waste product from many different types of manufacturing processes involving metal fabrication, plating, finishing, etc.
However, as a result of the enactment of the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA), disposal of certain solid wastes recently became subject to the EPA Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test (Test Method 1311, Federal Register, Mar. 29, 1990 revised Jun. 29, 1990 herein incorporated by reference). Sludges produced from treatments in commercial metals-removal applications are classified as solid wastes and are thus subject to this test, which serves as one of the criteria for distinguishing between hazardous and non-hazardous wastes.
This test requires acidification of the sample, followed by instrumental analysis to measure the concentrations of any metallic ion(s) that may have been leached from the sample. Metal hydroxide-based sludges possess an inherent disadvantage with respect to this test method, since metal hydroxides exhibit resolubilization behavior under suboptimal pH conditions, including those of the TCLP test protocol.
Other treatments for metals removal also produce solid metal-containing precipitates. Precipitation of metal sulfides via addition of a soluble sulfide source (for example, sodium sulfide) is an effective technique for soluble metals removal. However, this process has a disadvantage in that the precipitated metal sulfide solids contained in the resulting sludge are easily oxidized to metal sulfates, and are then resolubilized, since many metal sulfate salts are water soluble.
The use of sodium borohydride to chemically reduce soluble metals to their elemental forms has also been used. This process produces very low volumes of sludge solids consisting of solid elemental metals. However, these metal solids will easily redissolve (i.e., corrode) if left in contact with an aqueous system.
Thus, each of the metal-based sludges generated from the techniques described above are likely to be relatively unstable under conditions similar to those of the TCLP test.